Clevehill Baseball: Baseball Tidbits
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MOMS OF SUMMER
Check out this article on the Babe Ruth League website. - Interesting...
CLICK TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY IN BASEBALL
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WHAT IS A BASEBALL GLOVE?
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A baseball glove is the dusty badge of belonging, the tanned and oiled mortar of team and camaraderie; in its creases and scuffs lodge sunburned afternoons freckled with thrills, the excited hum of competition, cheers that burst like skyrockets.
A baseball glove is Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle and a thousand-and-one names and moments strung together like white and crimson banners in the vast stadium of memory.
A baseball glove is the leather of adventure, worthy successor to the cowboy holster, the trooper's saddle and the buckskin laces of the frontier scout; it is combat, heroics, and victory...a place to smack a first or snuff a rally.
Above all a baseball glove is the union of father and son, boy and friends, man and men; it is a union beyond language, creed or color.
Anonymous
A Prayer for Baseball Opening Day
A Prayer For Opening Day of Little League Season
by Willie Morris
Dear Almighty God,
This is a prayer for all the kids of all races and creeds in the boundless earthly springtime as baseball once more commences, as it has and will eternally in the ordinance and charter of Thy inexorable seasons.
First, bless the youthful catchers in their awkward knee pads and chest pads and masks, their unwieldy tools of ignorance, which shelter all boys who possess the valor to be catchersthat they may be safe from injury and neglect, from errant curveballs and fast stray ones and sharp little fouls that nip the mortal flesh.
Protect the little infielders from bad bounces and assuage the pain of wounded lips and cheeks when blood mingles with the infield soil; grant them deft shovel dips and 6-4-3 double plays.
Spare the eager outfielders from misjudging long drives in the lengthening twilight, permit them swift, diving catches in the dry and tranquil grass, and assure them hard, accurate tosses on cutoff throws to the inmost diamonds, straight to second, or at the corners with the runners going.
Save the young pitchers from all erratic affliction as the line drives whip past their heads and torsos and toes, and give them mastery of their fastballs and curves, that they may outwit the fledgling enemy sluggers, especially with men on bases.
Impart faith to the rookies whose toil is to wait in the bullpens, where their labor is anonymous, as it has been through mortal time, that they too, shall inherit the earth, for theirs is a lonely calling.
Comfort the smallest of the ballplayers, who have never gotten a hit, and those who strike out time and time again or languish on the benches day after livelong day, for their moment too is destined to be.
Defend the little ballplayers, when they drop flies or boot grounders, from the wrath of their fathers, for many are the fathers who fear not the timeless injunction, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." Forever shield the erring boys from retributive daddies who know not even the Infield Fly Rule.
Reward the faithful mothers as they transport their children to practice, launder their sullied uniforms, soothe their cuts and bruises, pacify their anxious qualms, and sustain them in triumph as in adversity with cheers and acclamations from the bleachers, for theirs is the rightfully the Kingdom of Heaven.
Glorify, too the grandparents in their faithfulness and the aunts and uncles who bear witness in the stands, and forsake not the little brothers and sisters who admire their agile siblings with an abiding eagerness.
Absolve the umpires from the consequences of their flaws, bequeath them transcendent vision, and sanctify them above all for the close calls at the plate, for they more than any of Thy Creatures, are afflicted with tribulations.
Remind us that baseball will never die, for its everlasting rhythms lie rooted in the soil and its passions, in the smell of new grass, in the hot sunshine of the deepest summers, in the enduring chatter that ripples through the bleachers, in the wafting odor of peanuts and popcorn and breaded corn dogs.
Above all, grant us boyhood and girlhood where in times soft reverie we are forever children, and where baseball shall dwell with us always, and where sharp grounders are eternally fielded in a new leather glove and drives to deep center are ceaselessly ensnared in shoestring catches and the wicked curveballs are met with two run singles to left center, to win the games in the bottom half of the ninth.
In Thy infinite wisdom and grace, our Great Umpire in the Heavens, grant all this in perpetuity to all the baseball children of the earth.
Amen
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
